Taste buds are a super funny thing. Over the last few months, my taste buds have been all over the place. There was even a time frame where I couldn’t even drink tea. Everything tasted off and not even my favorite teas tasted right. Right around the same time when I noticed my taste buds going wonky, I was starting to notice other health issues so I decided just to take a break from tea all together, hoping that eventually my taste buds would right themselves again.
Recently I felt the urge to have a cuppa tea and I was delighted when not only did the tea taste amazing but my taste seemed to be sharper. Like I was able to pick up flavors I wasn’t able to before. Which was so exciting! I quickly shuffled through my tea stash and got to work enjoying cuppa after cuppa of teas that had not had a lot of attention for a while. After making some headway in my stash. . I decided it was time to check out my friends at Evil Tea once again. I had tried their teas before and enjoyed them but never reordered or nabbed any of their latest blends. After seeing a Halloween promo of theirs, I decided to indulge and pick up a few of their blends. And then a few days later, picked up a few more. . .because. .I was a bit hooked.
I couldn’t wait to try this blend again. I had tried this blend a bit ago and while it was good and I enjoyed the cuppa, with having so much tea in my tea stash- I was trying to still sip a few more down before I ordered again. This morning I was super excited to get home, get the kettle prepped and get this tea a brewing. I was a bit leery about the 5 minute steep time- so I went with a 3 min steep time with freshly prepped 212F water.
First sip in and straight away you are hit with a delicious dessert like note of vanilla that doesn’t really scream straight out vanilla but almost like that soft vanilla like note you would get from a really upscaled cookie or cupcake. The aroma hits you in the same fashion. Just a solid lovely not overdone sweetness that keeps you grabbing for you cuppa and enjoying every sip. This is a Ceylon based blend and there is a slight briskness or astringent note towards the end of each sip that rounds out the sweetness perfectly. There are also adorable sugar coated fennel seeds that I’m not really picking up but that is probably because I didn’t stick with the 5 minute steep. I’m a big fennel fan so I will have to try for that 5 min steep to see if the fennel notes come across stronger.
All in all, just a perfect lovely cuppa that I can only imagine would make an insanely good latte with a spiced oat cream or even a lovely adult beverage with a touch of bourbon cream, which I will be trying later this evening. I’ve always been a fan of my friends over at Evil Tea since they combine two of my favorite loves- all things dark and spooky and tea. Can’t wait to steep up the other blends to see if they hit the spot like Creepy Cake does.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Evil Tea
Description
Ingredients: A blend of Ceylon Teas with Creme Brulee Flavoring and Sugar Coated Fennel Seeds
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Monk’s Meditaton/Piper and Leaf -ashmanra
This was gifted to me by a friend who was curious about the blend but who isn’t really into black tea much anymore. She tried it and passed it on for me to taste.
It smells wonderfully fruity and sweet in the pouch!
I tried it hot first, and….wow. I actually did a slightly short steep of four minutes but this hits hard. The black tea is strong, builder’s tea strong, and might be just right for someone who adds milk and sugar, but I (and my friend) do not. To be fair, I have yet to meet a Monk’s Blend style tea that I liked, as they all came out too astringent or bitter for me, even with the fruit flavors. I love certain Ceylon teas, but others are a “no, thanks” for me.
I have never had catnip by itself but I read that it is woody and strong, and eventually minty notes will steep out. Maybe the catnip is also lending some bitter edge to this.
The grenadine is delightfully fruity, though, and with food this was okay. It is too astringent for my tastes to try to drink it without food – or sugar – to mitigate it.
Most tea of any decent quality can be manipulated to be at least drinkable no matter what your personal preferences are. I decided to cold steep this and see how it goes as a fruity iced tea.
I made simple syrup so we could each add sweetness to our iced tea as we like.
This is the way to go on this one for me! It cold steeped well in the fridge, and after about four hours of chilling and releasing those lovely grenadine notes, I poured it into mason jars and took it to the patio with a hearty dollop of simple syrup in each serving. Very nice this way, and might be just right for lovers of Monk’s Blend teas!
I will be saving some to pass back to my friend so she can try it cold steeped. It is really is the way to go with this one for me!
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Piper and Leaf
Description
Ingredients: Ceylon Black Tea, Catnip, Organic Grenadine Flavor, Calendula Petals
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Sakura & Berry/Lupicia -Stephenia-
Each year Lupicia Tea, a Japanese tea company, comes out with a Sakura collection to celebrate cherry blossom season. The collection changes each year and for 2021 the theme is traditional Japanese culture that has been handed down through the generations, such as crafts and traditional Japanese patterns. The collection is well balanced and features a green tea, a decaf tea, black tea, rooibos, even a sakura matcha! The tins this year are beautiful and feature a lovely floral motive. I have wanted to try teas from Lupicia’s Sakura collection for some time so I decided this year that I would order a few.
The first one I am reviewing is Sakura & Berry. This has a black tea base with salted cherry leaf, rose petal and flavoring. The description says that this has a “sweet strawberry flavor.” The dry leaf smells amazing and actually made me think of when my mom would make me strawberries and cream oatmeal as a kid. I steeped the tea up at 212 degrees for 3 minutes.
I really love this one. The first taste is a nice fruity strawberry flavor, nothing too strong. It actually has the same strawberry flavor as strawberries and cream oatmeal but without the cream aspect. On the second taste I get a hit of the black tea base, it is smooth and mellow. I had hoped that I would get taste of the salted cherry leaf however that didn’t come through in the flavor.
Overall this is a tasty strawberry tea in a beautiful tin and certainly worth trying if you love strawberry-flavored teas. I really enjoy Lupicia tea, in fact their rooibos-based honeydew melon tea is in my top 5 favorite teas of all time! If you are interested in the Sakura collection I would not wait as fulfillment for the US comes from the online Hawaii Lupicia store and they get very limited amounts of inventory on these special edition collections.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Lupicia
Description
We are happy to announce the arrival of our seasonal SAKURA & BERRY tea: A blend of Darjeeling and Nilgiri black teas with salted cherry blossom leaves, mixed with sweet strawberry flavor and aroma. Popular as a hot or iced tea, try it with a bit of milk! A LUPICIA Hawaii staff favorite. (Only available in limited quantity)
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Hot Cinnamon Spice/Ohio Tea Co -Skysamurai-
Artificial flavor. You are a bane to the tea world.
And yet when it comes to cinnamon tea like this I have a small part of my world reserved for you.
You would be completely different without that accursed thing. This brings me back to Pike’s Place Market in Seattle.
To the left you will find a shop that sells Orange cinnamon tea very much like this one. Ohio Tea Co does a very good job with this imitation though I still prefer Marketspice as I feel theirs is stronger. It could also be due to the type of tea bag they used which makes it so this tea can’t fully realize its potential in the water.
Now that I don’t drink many teas with flavors I feel myself getting a bit of a headache so I am glad I only got one bag. But the headache was worth it. I think. Something still bothers me about this one though. It starts off nice and strong and then it just drops off a cliff or like a part of the flavor runs into a wall and the rest keeps going. It is strange.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Ohio Tea Company
Description
This blend brews very sweet even though no sugar is added. A cinnamon lover’s dream come true. A combination of hearty Chinese and Indian black tea and invigorating cinnamon.
Many cinnamon teas have a watery aftertaste due to the use of low grade teas. The black tea here has the stamina to last through the whole tasting process.
Ingredients:
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Day #1 Adagio Teas Advent Calendar -CuppaGeek-
Today is the second official day of the tea advent calendar season but to avoid spoilers- I’m going to review the lovely Adagio Teas Advent Calendar a day behind so without further ado. . . . .
Day #1- Spiced Apple Chai
Spiced Apple Chai is a tea blend from Adagio Teas that I know very well. I have enjoyed this one quite often. This lovely black tea based flavored chai is pretty much like fall in a cup but I like to enjoy this one with a twist. A shot of rum or a dollop of cream just adds a nice next level feel to this brew.
Brewed with fresh prepped water at boiling and steeped for right around 2-3 minutes this blends yields a distinctive distinctive apple flavor along with what I would consider the traditional chai spices-ginger, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon . Flavors that you would expect to go well together and a chai you want to enjoy on a cool day where wrapping your hands around a mug brings your tea loving soul so much love.
Adding the additional extras of course are optional to enjoy this lovely cuppa and what is great about this particular blend, there are so many different ways you can enjoy- western brewed, as a latte, adult like with a shot of this or that, cold brewed with or without a touch of maple syrup, truly the possibilities are endless which makes this one of my favorite Adagio blends.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Adagio Teas
Description
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
